The "agendists" are changing our language to alter the way we think

June 14, 2023

If You Want to Change Thinking, Change the Language

By James Terminiello

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

This quote from George Orwell’s dystopian classic “1984” (1) demonstrates the ruling party’s attempt to change people's thinking by changing the meaning of words. Outside the realm of fiction, the Soviets “liquidated” their enemies instead of murdering them. Hitler’s “anschluss” redefined a word meaning union to sugarcoat his takeover of Austria. And today, Vladimir Putin has a “special military operation” breezing along merrily in bloodied and cratered Ukraine. What invasion?

Of course, this kind of language reconfiguration only goes on elsewhere. Or does it?

The terms “undocumented immigrant” “asylum seeker”, and “dreamer” have displaced the definitive “illegal alien” in a governmental blurring of reality designed to soften the political and financial consequences of this massive population shift.

I have been told that my maleness was “assigned at birth”. This comes as a shock to me as I was “assigned” Home Room 103 in high school and had always assumed that the decision was merely an arbitrary one by a random school official. And after all these years, who knew that the decision about my sexuality was made so flippantly and not by the learned scrutiny of a highly trained medical professional? Such a redefinition leaves open the possibility of “gender affirmation surgery” Of course, such surgery would in effect be gender re-alignment and the male portions of my body who must suffer the consequences of the affirmation process would not be permitted to have a say so in the matter. Indeed, do bodies have any human rights?

In our soft-hearted age, “substance abusers”, a term so broad as to include tomato (a known substance) squashers, are said to have a “chemical dependency.” Since I and my fellow humans can count potassium, phosphorus, and calcium as among the many chemicals we depend on to exist, one can argue that we all have a chemical dependency. Alas, the terms “drug addict” and “alcoholic”, while accurate and far more on point, must fall by the wayside lest sensitive souls suffer word burn from the harsh rays of reality.

The English language is often whipped, bent, and threatened by those with an agenda. Of late, the wonderful and harmless word “they” has been kidnapped almost as a protest by the transgender, non-binary, agender, intersex, and pan-multidimensional-don't-fence-me-in communities. I for one think that “they” should be released from political prison and those who do not want to be pigeonholed into a slot can choose from a whole armada of perfectly useful and far more descriptive and invigorating words such as fluid, amorphous, random, flickering, boundless, gender buoyant, panoramic, effervescent, and 360 to name a few. But we must all agree that a person can only be one being at a time. Otherwise, I want to see that 2nd Social Security card and Uncle Sam may want to have a talk with you as well.

The exhaustive attempts to eradicate any hint of the history of slavery from our less enlightened past has led to the term “master bedroom” being eliminated from home-selling lingo. The word master, in a roundabout way, is thought to link to the master/slave relationship. If this is so, we must also adjust the military rank of master-sergeant to ultra-sergeant, shred those hard-won master’s degrees, and alert Leonardo da Vinci that he produced no timeless masterpieces. (2)

In the newly dedicated Hall of Pusillanimous Words, the term “person of color” gets an honorary pedestal. There is not a single human on this planet who is not a person of color, and the spectrum is wide indeed. If you mean the term to represent only certain persons of color then you are effectively guilty of violating the latest array of diversity and inclusion initiatives currently consuming ink and web-space at an unsustainable rate.

Sorry folks, the term “native American” is inaccurate. There are no native Americans. Current evidence shows that, in pre-historic times, the “first immigrants” (a superior term) slipped across the now vanished land bridge that connected what is now Russia with present day Alaska. It does not matter if anyone can trace their lineage to that group of people, they would still be immigrants, or invaders if you wish this place should never have been settled. In short, none of us are truly natives. (3)

Like politics, education, and even science, language can be manipulated, mangled, and perverted by those with power, influence, and an agenda. And there is no one but our individual selves to stand watch and alert people when the “agendists” are on the march and need to be called out when they have gone too far.